Digital cameras have become very common and have largely replaced traditional film cameras. Today, most digital cameras incorporate a display screen on the back of the camera to enable image preview and to provide user interface elements for adjusting camera settings. The display screen can also be used to browse through images that have been captured using the digital camera and are stored in the digital camera's memory. To use this capability, the user typically puts the camera into a review mode and uses buttons to scroll through the images one at a time. When a large number of digital images are stored in the digital camera, it can be a time-consuming and frustrating process to scroll through the images to find the ones of interest.
Touch screen displays and other forms of touch-based user interfaces are becoming increasingly common for consumer digital devices such as music players and cell phones and digital cameras. Touch screens provide unique opportunities for system designers to develop new and innovative user interface designs.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2002/0176016 to Misawa et al., entitled “Portable Electronic Apparatus” discloses a digital camera having touch pads arranged around a display screen, wherein display operations can be controlled in accordance with touch position and movement.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2008/0165150 to Kwon, entitled “Data Scrolling Apparatus and Method for Mobile Terminal,” teaches a digital camera having touch strips positioned on left and right sides of a display screen. Device operations can be controlled by detecting slide operations on the touch strips.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,345,675 to Minakuchi et al., entitled “Apparatus for Manipulating an Object Displayed on a Display Device by Using a Touch Screen,” teaches a method for manipulating objects displayed on a display device having a touch screen.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,355,620 to Ikehata et al., entitled “Digital Still Camera and User Instruction Input Method,” discloses a digital still camera in which a direction and speed of a tracing operation by user's fingertips on a touch panel are judged and a dynamic image reproduction process is executed in accordance with the direction and speed. For example, a fast forward operation is executed in response to a long and fast tracing operation from left to right and a rewind operation is executed in response to a long and fast tracing operation from right to left.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,430,008 discloses a method for advancing, backing or deleting an image displayed on a touch screen according to a detected touch pattern.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,479,949 to Jobs et al., entitled “Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Determining Commands by Applying Heuristics,” teaches a method for interacting with a computing device comprising detecting one or more touch positions on a touch screen.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2008/0163119 to Kim, entitled “Method for Providing Menu and Multimedia Device Using the Same” discloses a multimedia device including a touch screen which can be used to enable a user to interact with menu icons for the purpose of controlling the operation of the device.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2008/0165141 to Christie, entitled “Gestures for Controlling, Manipulating and Editing of Media Files using Touch Sensitive Devices,” discloses a method for using a touch sensitive display to manage and edit media files on a computing device.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2008/0297484 to Park, entitled “Method and Apparatus for Providing Gesture Information Based on Touchscreen and Information Terminal Device Having the Apparatus,” discloses a method for enabling user interface interaction based on a touch screen. The method includes displaying guide information if a touch of the touch screen is sensed.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2009/0160778 to Nurmi et al., entitled “Apparatus, Method and Computer Program Product for Using Variable Numbers of Tactile Inputs,” teaches a method for using varying numbers of tactile inputs to manipulate different features of an electronic device. In particular, varying numbers of tactile inputs can be used to adjust the speed of movement of an image displayed on the electronic device, to modify adjustable features, and to unlock the electronic device.
There remains a need for an efficient and user-friendly method for browsing collections of images on digital imaging devices having a touch screen.